Thirty years ago today — March 24, 1979 — the Space Shuttle Columbia was transported to Kennedy Space Center, marking the first time a shuttle was delivered to the launch base. It was carried atop a modified Boeing 747 as shown in the attached image.*
(NASA Photo EC01-0055-1. Click to enlarge.)
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*The image is of a later flight, in March 2001.
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Twenty years ago today — March 13, 1989 — Space Shuttle Discovery launched from KSC on mission STS-29. Astronauts Michael L. Coats, John E. Blaha, James P. Bagian, James F. Buchli, and Robert C. Springer launched the TDRS-4 satellite to complete the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite constellation. The crew landed at Edwards Air Force Base, California on March 18th.
Unfortunately, I can’t remember if that was one of the landings I watched. I know it wasn’t one of the landings I worked as part of the AFFTC recovery crew; somewhere I have the mission emblems from those four landings, framed together, and the STS-29 mission emblem isn’t among them.*
And finally, if you’re interested, here’s a little bit about TDRS.
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*I should take that memento to my office and hang it up, but that would require finding it first.
by Thirty years ago today — March 8, 1979 — the Space Shuttle Columbia was delivered to NASA from the factory in Palmdale, California.
And 15 years ago today, it was in orbit. Columbia launched on March 4, 1994 from the Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-62, carrying astronauts John H. Casper, Andrew M. Allen, Pierre J. Thuot, Charles D. Gemar, and Marsha S. Ivins. They spent almost two weeks in space, landing back at KSC on March 18th.
And now you know.
by Fifty years ago today — February 5, 1959 — NASA formed a working group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to lay the groundwork for what would become the Apollo lunar exploration program. I find that interesting, since it pre-dates President Kennedy’s challenge to achieve a moon mission by the end of the 60s.
Two additional tidbits today:
First, I feel really bad for missing another big space anniversary. Fifteen years ago Tuesday (February 3, 1994), Space Shuttle Discovery launched from the Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-60. This was the SPACEHAB-02 and Wake Shield Facility-1 mission, and included astronauts Charles F. Bolden, Kenneth S. Reightler, Jr., N. Jan Davis, Ronald M. Sega, Franklin R. Chang-Diaz, and first Russian cosmonaut to fly aboard the Space Shuttle, Sergei K. Krikalev.
Why do I feel particularly bad about missing this one? Because I wrote speeches for Ron Sega as my last assignment in the Air Force, when he was the Under Secretary, and he presided over my retirement ceremony:
(Click for larger image)
And finally: it takes a long time to print out nearly 600 manuscript pages. I’ve got several copies of the MS about ready to mail out to early readers, but I got those done at the copy shop. I’m printing out another one here at home, and it’s taking a lot longer than I expected. And the printer has started making funny noises …
by … as my dad says.
Yesterday, in my zeal to comment on the Iranian satellite launch — which all too few people seem to recognize as a danger — I missed a space anniversary.*
On February 3, 1984, the Space Shuttle Challenger launched from the Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-41B. Astronauts Vance D. Brand, Robert L. Gibson, Bruce McCandless, Ronald E. McNair, and Robert L. Stewart deployed two satellites, Westar-VI and Palapa-B2, but they did not reach orbit because the Payload Assist Module failed. This mission also tested the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), and featured the first untethered space walks by McCandless and Stewart. NASA photograph S84-27562 captured one of the MMU tests and became an iconic photograph of the space age:
(Click for larger image)
You can read more about the STS-41B mission on this NASA page.
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*Okay, I also missed it because I spent the evening at choir practice and on the phone. You caught me.
by Continuing our series of space anniversaries,*
Twenty-five years ago today, Space Shuttle Atlantis launched from Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-27. Astronauts “Hoot” Gibson, Guy Gardner, Mike Mullane, Jerry Ross, and Bill Shepherd deployed a DoD payload. I think this was one of the missions my old boss worked on when he was stationed at the Cape.
And fifteen years ago today, STS-61 lifted off from Kennedy Space Center for the first mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope. Aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour were astronauts Richard O. Covey, Kenneth D. Bowersox, F. Story Musgrave, Kathryn C. Thornton, Claude Nicollier, Jeffrey A. Hoffman, and Thomas D. Akers.
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* Using only 5-year increments, for the most part.
by The writing retreat is working out well so far; in the last 24 hours, I’ve added 4000 words to the novel. MARE NUBIUM (THE SEA OF CLOUDS) is now about 95,000 words long. If I make it to 100K by the end of the weekend, I will have made my word count goal, but it looks as if the complete draft is going to be around 120K.
[break, break]
In today’s space history tidbit, 25 years ago today Space Shuttle COLUMBIA lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-9. The mission included astronauts John Young — one of the most experienced astronauts and a veteran of the Gemini and Apollo programs — Brewster Shaw, Owen Garriott, Robert Parker, Byron Lichtenberg, and Ulf Merbold, and was the first Spacelab mission.
And now you know.
by Today’s space anniversary marks the first and only flight of the Soviet Union’s space shuttle “Buran” — November 15th, 1988. It lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on a modified Energia booster, and returned to the launch site a few hours later.
When I was at Baikonur in 2002, the Buran facility was pointed out to me as we drove by it. Part of it had collapsed earlier in the year, damaging the remaining orbiter. What was left of it looked to be in sad shape — Baikonur is an unforgiving environment.
More about the Buran program is here and here.
by On November 1, 1993, the Space Shuttle Columbia landed at Edwards Air Force Base, California, at the end of mission STS-58. The crew had spent 14 days aboard the orbiter.
At the time, we were still new to Vandenberg AFB on the California coast, and I was in the middle of the first project I would manage for the Titan System Program Office: finding and retrieving from the ocean floor pieces of a failed rocket. That was a fascinating project, and I have a piece of the rocket that they gave me as a going-away present.
In more recent news, I think I figured a way to tie in part of that search and salvage operation with the novel I’m writing. We’ll see how that works out.
by I don’t know if anyone else is enjoying my ongoing series of space anniversaries, but I am.
Ten years ago today — October 29th, 1998 — the Space Shuttle Discovery lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-95. Aboard were seven astronauts, including one from Spain and one from Japan, who would conduct experiments in the SPACEHAB module and deploy and retrieve the “Spartan” free-flyer.
The crew were Curtis L. Brown, Steven W. Lindsey, Scott E. Parazynski, Stephen K. Robinson, Pedro Duque (Spain), Chiaki Mukai (Japan), and — making the triumphant return mentioned in the title — John H. Glenn. Thirty-six years, eight months and nine days after becoming the first American to orbit the Earth, Senator Glenn returned to space.
The mission also:
The mission lasted a few hours shy of nine days, making it a much longer stay in space than the first time for Senator Glenn. And longer than I’m likely ever to stay in space, despite my most fervent wishes. I suppose there’s still hope for my ashes, but hopefully that day won’t come for a long time.
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